'Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity'

Two months after the 2016 presidential election, radio journalist Lewis Raven Wallace proclaimed in a blog post “Objectivity is Dead and I’m Okay With it,” highlighting how “neutrality” in newsrooms can be a tool of racism and transphobia.

Wallace, then the only transgender journalist at the public radio show Marketplace, was fired after refusing to take the post down from his personal blog. Now, his subsequent research into the history of “objectivity” and power has resulted in a new book, The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity, published by University of Chicago Press, and a podcast by the same name.

Wallace will give a public talk about the harm caused by the myth of objectivity, and facilitate a discussion on how journalism can rigorously pursue truth while also claiming its values, better representing the communities it serves, and advocating for human rights.

While some journalism schools and newsrooms might tout objectivity as a pillar of the craft, author Lewis Raven Wallace argues in his book “The View from Somewhere” that if you look at how American journalism reported on issues from slavery and lynching to the early LGBTQ movement, “many of the journalists who’ve told the truth in key historical moments have been outliers and members of an opposition, here and in other countries.”